Rumor Alert: Microsoft in Talks to Acquire Silent Hills from Konami

Rumor has it that Microsoft is in talks with Konami to purchase the cancelled Silent Hills game off of the restructuring publisher. The anonymous industry source comes by way of Rooster Teeth’s The Know program, with reporting done by the Funhaus team.

Lawrence Sonntag, the team’s resident reporter/podcast host, declined to reveal the source’s identity, but cited its past reliability in allowing their team (then Inside Gaming) to report on Microsoft’s plans to sell an Xbox One without the Kinect. The rumor turned out to be true, despite Microsoft trumpeting the Xbox One + Kinect marriage in the months leading up to the release.

As for Silent Hills, Microsoft is hoping to get a deal finalized before E3 so that they can trot it out during their press conference. Microsoft is hungry for exclusives, and rightly so. It is the one area that Microsoft currently has the leg up on against Sony and gaining a storied franchise, especially one with as much drama and clout as Silent Hills, would be a significant gain for the Xbox One. Say what you will about The Master Chief Collection, but the Xbox One’s exclusives have been consistently better and more numerous than Sony’s, which have been marred by mediocrity (The Order: 1886), broken gameplay (Driveclub) and lengthy delays (Uncharted 4).

Even better news is that Silent Hills is rumored to be about 80% complete and would put Microsoft on track to push the game out early in 2016 with a potential March target.

Even further complexing this twisted drama is that the removal of P.T. from the PlayStation store was done as a move of good faith for Konami to Microsoft. By removing the most talked about demo in recent memory from their direct competitor, Microsoft is putting themselves to truly benefit from the acquisition of Silent Hills.

Beyond the rumor, there is no word on how production of Silent Hills will progress moving forward. Whether or not either Guillermo del Toro or Hideo Kojima will be brought on or whether Microsoft will be taking the entire franchise from Konami or just the Silent Hills game. The deal is rumored to be in the billions so odds are that the deal would be for Microsoft to take the entire franchise which is ironic considering the game’s birth on the Sony PlayStation.

If Microsoft does acquire the game from Konami, it will be interesting to see if they are able to convince Kojima to partner up with them for the game’s completion. He is, after all, rumored to be out of a job at the end of the year. It might be a little tight, but he could conceivably be allowed to work as a private contractor if his status at Konami has indeed been changed. Even without Kojima involved, gaining Silent Hills or even the entire franchise would benefit Microsoft significantly. Microsoft is positioning themselves from a software angle to be able to combat Sony’s stronger hardware. It was a strategy that ultimately worked for Sony with the PlayStation 3 lagging behind the Xbox 360.

Need for Speed, Don’t Call it a Comeback (Reboot)

Electronic Arts is calling their next entry into their iconic Need for Speed series a reboot, echoing buzzwords and happy memories of the many highpoints that the racing series has provided over the past 20 years. Announced with their signature “in-game engine” teaser trailer, a Porsche and a Mustang are sliding around a city’s late night streets as police cruisers scream after them in tow.

Whatever Electronic Arts is up to, their marketing team needs to stop using lowest common denominator terms. It is insulting.

Let’s be honest.

Need for Speed does not deserve the term “reboot”. It is a series that’s sole purpose has been racing and that style of racing has changed from title to title. Sure the early Need for Speed games were just about racing exotics through the country hills, NFS3: Hot Pursuit added police chases. Then it got crazy with Underground’s popularity, which led to Most Wanted and the proliferation of the incredibly campy (but slightly endearing) FMV cutscenes. But what did NFS ProStreet, Carbon, Shift or Rivals have to do with any of this formula?

Need for Speed does not have a formula beyond fast cars, loose arcade style physics with the modern focus of police pursuits that has been a recurring feature for over 15 years.

So to call it a reboot is incorrect. Nothing has changed about Need for Speed. EA has gotten progressively more impatient with the development studios that have done great things (and mediocre things) for the franchise. Black Box brought on the popularity of Underground but met their end after ProStreet, Undercover and The Run were underwhelming. Criterion Games, one of the best arcade racing development studios of all time, flamed out after two games. Both Hot Pursuit and Most Wanted were critical darlings, but had trouble latching on to audiences in the way that past games had. Criterion ended up handing Need for Speed off to Ghost games, which made the decent but hardly attention grabbing Rivals.

I speak from an angle of adoration for the Need for Speed franchise. I want it to do good things, which is why I stuck by it over the years. It will likely never be the best racing game on the market, but it has managed to carve out a particular following with a great combination of mechanics and loose arcade-style freedom. I trumpeted praise for 2012’s Most Wanted, despite its slightly hollow core. I played through the entirety of The Run and concluded that the best moments of the game were contained in the demo. I adored Porsche Unleashed’s 4 point physics model that was unheard of in the franchise. I modded High Stakes, became obsessed with Underground and think Shift is the most underrated title in the franchise. But Electronic Arts can not lie to us.

The phrase that stands out in Electronic Arts’ announcement is “deep customization, authentic urban car culture, a nocturnal open world, and an immersive narrative that pulls you through the game.” They can tout a reboot as much as they want. But at the end of the day, they’re going back to a game that ended up making their biggest successes. This is Underground. This is Most Wanted. This is Rivals. This is Hot Pursuit. This is every Need for Speed game that they’ve ever made, put into one product. They are desperately fighting for recognition. Maybe they should bring back Black Box.

But unless it has FMV cutscenes. It’s not a reboot.

Lego Dimensions Goes Back…with Christopher Lloyd

Warner Brothers Interactive released a new Lego Dimensions trailer that featured veteran actor Christopher Lloyd in a throwback to his famed Back to the Future character, Doc Brown. Shot in a similar manner as the game’s debut trailer that featured actor/comedian Joel McHale, Lloyd jumps right back into arguably his most famed role.

While a nice little sight for fans of the Back to the Future franchise, I’m not quite sure what Warner Brothers is trying to achieve with Lego Dimensions. The Lego games have been an absolute success for them over the years but their entry into the Toys to Life fracas feels a little bit like throwing mud against the wall and seeing what sticks. They’ve already confirmed that Back to the Future will be touted along with The Lord of the Rings, DC Comics and The Lego Movie but throw in additional playsets and Lego Dimensions is beginning to sound like outright insanity. Additional playsets and figures continue to be leaked/announced after last month’s debut, including Jurassic World, Scooby Doo, The Wizard of Oz, The Simpsons, Doctor Who and Portal.

I am absolutely intrigued by the idea of so many different worlds being smashed together, but it remains to be seen if Traveller’s Tales can build a world that will do justice to the source material.

Midweek Timewaster – That Wizard Came for a Dance Party

What’s better than a Destiny dance party? A choreographed Destiny dance party.

It’s Time to Let Go of Konami

Konami, as we knew it, is done.

The sooner that fact is understood, the sooner the healing process can begin.

I know it’s going to be tough, but together we can bear through this. Konami was amazing. They were at the center of some of gaming’s iconic franchises over the course of 20 years. Not only did they bring Metal Gear and Silent Hill into the conversation of modern gaming’s best but they also put out the classics Frogger, Castlevania and Contra.

So why would a company as rich a history as Konami seem to be having a fire sale?

Living through the successes of their past does not guarantee success in the future. Especially in the Video Games industry that has seen Atari go out of business just to be resurrected for the name alone, Sega unceremoniously bullied out of the console space and THQ implode around themselves, despite being on the verge of becoming a true AAA publisher.

Ask yourself this, are you really surprised that this happened?

In recent years, Konami’s only games that performed well enough to turn a noticeable profit have been entries into their Winning 11/Pro Evolution Soccer series and Metal Gear. But none of the entries were chart burners. Metal Gear Rising: Revengence, the last full Metal Gear game, brought in an external developer (albeit a stellar one in Platinum) and only managed to draw 1.7 million copies in global sales across both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. In contrast, the last true Metal Gear Solid title, MGS4, sold nearly 6 million copies worldwide.

The brutal truth of Konami’s involvement in games development is that the sales numbers are no longer worth the massive investment it takes to properly develop games for home consoles. Letting classic franchises like Castlevania, Contra and even Hudson’s Bomberman are byproducts of Konami’s prolonged exit from the home console space.

It seems that the only thread holding everything together was Metal Gear and Hideo Kojima. Kojima has long been a proponent of innovation, artful direction and games as a medium to rival film and television entertainment. Behind Kojima Metal Gear became the mammoth property that Konami held dear and was responsible for spearheading the ambitious Silent Hills project as well as a major factor in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow.

But let’s be honest. Metal Gear has become a whale in the boardroom. Producing a multi-million dollar entertainment game only increased in size as Kojima ballooned the project out to include luxury features like casting Keifer Sutherland, building their own game engine and creating the multi-SKU nightmare that was Ground Zeroes and Phantom Pain. Combined with insane publicity stunts with the infamous Joakim Mogren stunt, Kojima, while brilliant, had become a liability.

The only reason why we are really noticing that Konami is unceremoniously leaving traditional gaming development is because of the ill-timed confluence of events. Kojima and Konami falling out. Metal Gear Solid V’s rocky development period. Silent Hills cancelled. Delisting themselves from the New York Stock Exchange. Konami no longer cares about developing games to create worlds and tell stories. They are a company, who happens to have made a few successful games. They also have health clubs. They also make pachinko machines. They also make slot machines.

So when Konami CEO Hideki Hayakawa said, “Gaming has spread to a number of platforms, but at the end of the day, the platform that is always closest to us, is mobile. Mobile is where the future of gaming lies,” I am disappointed but I am not surprised.

Or when the state of Nevada approves a bill that allows for gambling games of skill to be including in casinos, a move spearheaded by Konami’s gambling division president Thomas Jingoli, I am not surprised. Odds are the only chance we have at seeing a new game of Frogger is on a skill based slot machine in Vegas.

And that is depressing.

But you know what, it’s okay. I am glad that Kojima is leaving Konami. He is better than what Konami is now. It is a shame that Metal Gear will not leave Konami with Kojima. After all, it was poor production and direction that kept pulling Kojima back into the Metal Gear projects.

However Metal Gear Solid V performs this Fall, I’m sure it will make a ton of money for Konami. Let them relish in it. Let them lie through their teeth about it. Forget about the Konami you loved. Because that Konami will be long gone after this year.

This Doom Teaser is Shorter Than This Headline

While technically a teaser trailer, Bethesda gave an (extremely) brief glimpse of the upcoming Doom game which will be presumably shown at their E3 press conference. Doom is actually the fourth game in the Doom franchise but Bethesda and Id Software decided to drop the numeration and focus on creating a visceral game, akin to the tone and speed of the original 3D corridor shooter.

Here’s what I expect. It will be pretty because Id makes incredible looking games. There will be some demons. Hopefully it will be a hip fire shooter with no iron sights, because lets be honest, That’s what Doom is.

Midweek Timewaster: This Figure is Over 9000

Brazilian design company ZW Design partnered up with marketing firm Front BH to create this Goku figure, which uses a fairly old holographic technique to some spectacular results. Rumor has it they actually are putting it into production so…

Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate Officially Emerges from London Fog

After a six day lead up, UbiSoft announced that Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate will be officially bringing the franchise to London. Confirming many leaked reports, Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate will take place during 19th century Victorian era London and will be released on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Windows PC on October 23.

Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate seems to be walking the series back to what made some of the early entries special. Gone are the multiplayer co-operative modes that Unity touted and replaced by a focus on the story driven campaign. Building up protagonist Jacob Frye’s gang, The Rooks, seems to be playing a major role, a subsystem that had seen a decreasing role since AC: Revelations. I personally loved the building of the brotherhood up in Ezio’s story and its absence was missed, even in the stellar Black Flag. One of my favorite things to do in combat was to call on my recruits to take out enemies at a distance. Assassin’s Creed III had a little bit of this, but the characters had specific skillsets and there were only several specific instances where calling them was needed.

Jacob will also be receiving a grappling hook, which really speeds up the vertical traversal and is very much a natural progression of how scaling buildings has evolved throughout the series. If Revalations added the hookblades and Black Flag added the rope dart, a grappling hook for climbing and combat is the right way to progress. Think Just Cause, but less explosions.

Syndicate also promises a better stealth system and the return of the whistle, another franchise mainstay that was missing from Unity. Day and night cycles will also return, after their absence from Unity, fights can occur on moving carriages and the female adversaries are making their franchise debut.

While I still hope that one day UbiSoft will bring back their competitive multiplayer, Syndicate appears to be well on its way to being something worthwhile. They chose a solid era, with some spectacular art design and visuals and have redacted much of what troubled Unity. I’m wondering what else they will cram into such a rich period beyond Charles Dickens and Charles Darwin…you have to assume that Jack the Ripper will make an appearance.

Kotaku – UbiSoft Announces Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate

Bloodstained, a Spiritual Successor to Castlevania, Kickstarted in Hours

Koji Igarashi, the name synonymous with the iconic Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, just began a Kickstarter game for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, which appears to be a spiritual successor to the modern 2D Castlevania games. The Kickstarter campaign began today, May 11, and reached its initial goal of $500,000 the same day. It is slated to release on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Windows PC via Steam.

Igarashi, or IGA as he has come to be known as, had a meteoric rise after being the co-director of Castlevnaia: Symphony of the Night, he went on to produce all of the beloved 2D Castlevania follow-ups. Bloodstained looks to capture much of that magic he was able to create on the PlayStation and DS follow ups with gorgeous 2D artwork, spell effects and a gothic aesthetic that screams Castlevania. In a nod to his heritage (as well as the rapidly expanding Metroidvania sub-genre), he calls Bloodstained an IGAvania.

IGA ultimately left Konami after watching his beloved Castlevania series go the route of 3D with Lords of Shadow, a game that saw a shift in direction as Kojima Productions worked in collaboration with Spanish studio MercurySteam. IGA seemed to be shelved after the tepid response to the multiplayer focused Harmony of Despair and would not make a proper Castlevania after 2008’s Order of Ecclesia.

The timing of Bloodstained is actually pretty appropriate as IGA rises from the ashes to bring a back a neglected style of game. With Konami in disarray and seemingly disinterested in any legacy game development, Bloodstained is bound to gain some traction with fans of the Castlevania franchise, as well as many whom have embraced the throwback style of games.

With over $1.25M in donations thus far, Bloodstained is screaming up its bonus Kickstarter goals including a second playable character ($500k), nightmare difficulty ($800k), local co-op ($1.25M) and the addition of David Hayter to the voice cast ($850k). All in less than a day. With 31 days to go before the Kickstarter campaign ends, it will be interesting to see how IGA and the Bloodstained team are able to grow the project. Maybe they’ll kickstart engough funds to buy the rights to Castlevania and rename the game appropriately.

And who says a 2D Castlevania isn’t profitable.

Kickstarter – Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

Bethesda Rumored to Reveal Fallout 4 at E3 Conference

The Bethesda announcement the world saw coming finally appears to be materializing as Fallout 4 is rumored to be the closing act of Bethesda’s E3 press conference. According to German site PC Games, an anonymous but trusted source confirmed that Fallout 4 would be debuting at E3 2015, including closed door demonstrations. This is the first year that Bethesda has chosen to take part in a press conference joining the likes of UbiSoft and Electronic Arts as major publishers who put on a show prior to the opening of the expo.

Fallout 4 has long been wondered about and Bethesda has remained tight lipped over the years despite faux teaser sites launching, cryptic audio messages appearing online and even the unsubstantiated rumor that Boston would be the setting for the next post apocalyptic RPG. The last Fallout game, Fallout: New Vegas launched all the way back in 2010. Even the core Fallout 3 seems way in the past having launched back in 2008.

To put the time in perspective, the gap between Fallout 2 and Fallout 3 was 10 years, although much changed after Bethesda took over the franchise from Interplay. If Fallout 4 is indeed the finale of Bethesda’s presser, I don’t see that game being launched until 2016 at the earliest, possibly in late spring but more than likely in the fall.

It has been fun guessing what Bethesda would bring to this press event as their bread and butter, The Elder Scrolls, seems a bit away. Skyrim was a phenomenal game that deserves a proper follow-up, but with their jumbled mess of The Elder Scrolls Online, I see them staying away from this for now. Bethesda still has other franchises to trot out, including iD Software’s new Doom, which has only been shown behind closed doors, and the sequel to Arkane Studios’ highly regarded Dishonored. I also expect them to talk about their free-to-play Battlecry and possibly their plans for The Elder Scrolls Online. Five games is a pretty solid one hour show.

It will be interesting to see what direction Bethesda takes Fallout 4 as Fallout 3 was such a stellar modernization of a very antiquated grid based, turn based RPG. The VATS system has to carry forward but maybe a larger emphasis on the active sections of the game, making it more action oriented than the grindy, methodical game that Fallout 3 was. Bethesda has to be working on something with a new engine as well because that Gamebryo engine, while versatile, was clunky even 7 years ago.

With E3 about a month away, I am actually pretty excited for it this year. Not just for major announcements like Fallout 4, but for there to finally be some software available for these new systems. Two years is a long time to have limited releases on these consoles, the developers need to step it up.

IGN – Fallout 3 Rumor Puts Reveal At Bethesda’s E3 Conference